Robohelp 2019 Classic Extendscript Toolkit

Report · Feb 04, 2020

Does anyone know how to install Extendscript Toolkit for use with RH2019 Classic? It doesn't seem to be part of the installer like it used to be?

Report · Apr 23, 2020

I see the "Extendscript Toolkit CC" product listed in the Adobe Creative Cloud app (I use Win10). It can be installed from there. I use this toolkit for some Photoshop scripts that I run and the toolkit app works reasonable well for these.

I've only just started to try using scripts in RoboHelp (2019) and so far the built-in scripts work fine from RH itself but not from the ES Toolkit app (I see errors about "variable name expected on line 5" - e.g., WordCount.js)... I've also noticed that there's an ES Toolkit extension for VSCode available in case that's an option for you (although I still see the same error as above when running the WordCount.js example from VSCode...).

Report · Apr 23, 2020

ES Toolkit won't work for 2019 New UI, if that is what you're using. It will only work in Classic. I've also found the Object Model Viewer doesn't currently seem to display the RH classes, which I'm trying to sort out with support (which reminds me I need to follow up with them.)

For New UI, you have to use browser debugging by pressing Ctrl+Alt+D. (See here for a little more information about New UI scripting: https://community.adobe.com/t5/robohelp/rh2019-new-scripting-feature/td-p/10700312?page=1 )

Report · Apr 24, 2020

Thx, that helps. OK, so now I have to learn an entirely new infrastructure. I'm not complaining as I'm sure the new framework is much richer (including using React and Material UI as well as all the other 3rd party JS libraries available by default) and better supported. Without the information in your linked thread I never would have been able to figure this out on my own, at least not in any reasonable amount of time ;). I wonder if I'm missing where the key documentation is for all of this (i.e., Adobe product users that are familar with ES Toolkit and legacy scripting but have had no exposure to Chrome Devtools and the more modern node.js, React, Material-UI, et al framework(s)).

Implied here as well is that the scripts that come with RH2019 *won't* work with RH2019 Classic (which was the reason I was seeing the error as I was running them from ES Toolkit, which is wanted to run RH2019 Classic). To put this another way RH2019 Classic scripts are not support in RH2019 New UI (and vice versa). Well, I know the latter to be true at least, not *exactly* sure about the former...

Report · Apr 24, 2020

There's a robohelp scripting reference here: https://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/user-guide.html

It's um, shall we say, succinct? And there's no section that I noticed, or understood, not being a web developer, that lists or links all the 3rd party libraries, so as far as I can tell you just have to figure it out on your own.

Report · Apr 24, 2020

I haven't been told so, but I'm fairly sure Classic and New UI scripts won't work in the other version for the simple reason the XML of the two versions is very different.

At least the specifically RH classes probably wouldn't work, although I imagine if you set up a development environment for all the libraries you could run the other regular html, css, javascript processes successfully on Classic code. And probably re-invent the RH classes yourself, if you're a gun developer. 😛

Report · Apr 24, 2020

😉 Right, thx, I've gone through that doc. Not much help at all - would rather see example scripts and then derive what I need from there. Here's what I'm looking to do:

Clear all existing topics and TOC/index/browse sequence/map file for previously configured project.
Initiate a Word file import (or generate topics/TOC/index from linked Word file).
Establish the browse sequence (based on TOC).
Build the map file (aith auto populate).
Generate the Responsive HTML5 output.

As it stands I have to run all of these steps repeatedly for every RH project associated with a Word file specific project and whenever the Word file (essentially a product manual) is released. Nothing new to configure or change after the import, just generate the output. Woudl *love* to have a script that I could just run to do all of this autmatically..

Report · Apr 24, 2020

Oh I also created this item about scripting, which you could vote on if you like the suggestions. And feel free to submit your own. 🙂

https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/RH-6674

(disclaimer: I was having a bad day, so the comments are a little snarky...)